Honey, I shrunk the kingdom

LONDON — During the British general election Ed Miliband scored a hit that few noticed. In a speech at Chatham House he accused David Cameron of pursuing an “isolationist” foreign policy that has led to the “biggest loss of influence for our country in a generation.”

It’s the sort of charge that you might expect to hear from a Tory backbencher on the Right. But the Labour leader was actually echoing warnings from centrist establishment sources like the Financial Times, which ran an editorial in February worrying about “Britain’s drift to the foreign sidelines” pointing out that “as global challenges mount, the UK is increasingly absent.”

The Economist, equally Europhile and internationalist, was even tougher on the Coalition. In a scathing leader titled “Meet Little Britain, a shrinking actor on the global stage” it said that a cautious post-Tony Blair foreign policy would be understandable but that David Cameron has been “not so much cautious as apathetic, ineffective and fickle."

Shrinking Clout

Witness a paradox. Even as the British economy has strengthened, and even though London is more than ever a global hub, and even though the UK has access to reserves of human capital unequalled in Europe, British power and influence has gone into steep decline since Cameron first became prime minister.

That decline was not an issue during the election campaign. The only foreign policy matter the Tories were keen to talk about was a referendum on membership of the EU — prompted by the need to counter UKIP.

But the decline has been been noted by the UK’s friends and enemies around the globe. And there was embarrassing proof of it only 48 hours before Britons went to the polls, when the US Navy began escorting British commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain had discreetly asked for ships to be chaperoned after Iran seized a cargo ship flagged to the Marshall Islands on April 28. The request was an admission that the Royal Navy has shrunk to such a size that it can no longer protect British shipping in the strategic waterways that were, until recently, a British zone of influence. This zone includes Yemen, to whose collapse the UK has had no response. Britons had to be evacuated from Aden by Indian and Chinese vessels.

Although these manifestations of British weakness and the Cameron government’s seeming indifference to Britain’s influence escaped notice in the UK, previous ones did not.

David Cameron saw no reason to get involved with the emergency talks about Ukraine that saw Angela Merkel and François Hollande rush to Moscow. This was despite the fact that Britain was one of the three guarantors of Ukrainian security (in return for that country giving up its nuclear arsenal) under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Any hopes that Cameron’s refusal to get involved in Ukraine might soothe British relations with the Putin regime were quickly scotched as the UK became the subject of increasingly aggressive probes by Russian bombers and warships. Cameron’s apparent unconcern about Ukraine prompted the recently retired top British commander in NATO, General Sir Richard Shirreff, to complain that the Prime Minister is a “bit player...nobody takes any notice of” and that Britain is becoming “a foreign policy irrelevance.”

Shirreff might also have pointed to Cameron’s notable absence from the international negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program. Or the fact that despite Cameron’s typically impressive rhetoric about the “generational threat” from Islamist radicalism (a phrase he used in support of the robust French intervention in Mali) the UK has done considerably less than other Western states to combat it.

The UK’s contribution to the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, has been in the words of the Commons Defense Select Committee “strikingly modest.”

Much smaller countries like Denmark have contributed more troops to train and advise Iraqi Kurdish forces, and the Netherlands has deployed more fighter jets. The UK is limited in its ability to carry out airstrikes by the shrinkage of the RAF to only 6 fast jet squadrons, down from 11 during the first Gulf War. Outside the Kurdish region of Iraq, the UK has only three personnel training and advising Iraqi forces; Australia, Spain and Italy have sent 400, 300 and 280 troops, respectively.

No account of Cameron’s retreat from the world would be complete without reference to the scuttle from Afghanistan while claiming a mission accomplished.

British allies in ISAF were dismayed by the UK’s decision not to play a role in the successor to ISAF — Operation Resolute Support. In the UK’s absence, the lead in that 12,000-man effort is being taken by Germany, Italy, Turkey and the US.

The Cameron government decided to limit future military assistance to a small team working at the Afghan National Army Officers Academy, nicknamed the ‘Sandhurst in the Sand”. Rumors from inside the MOD say that the Cameron government is planning to renege even on that minimal commitment.

Allied disappointment in Afghanistan was dwarfed by the sense of betrayal among the thousands of Afghans who have worked with British during the last decade; the latter were understandably baffled by British assertions that the war in Afghanistan is “over.”

Vanishing Soft Power

There was a point early in his first term when Cameron sounded as if he were inclined to follow an assertive foreign policy. Although he had at first treated foreign affairs as primarily the promotion of British commerce, the Arab Spring caught his imagination. By early 2013, Cameron had become an early advocate of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya and enthusiastically supported the French campaign in Mali. There was even some excited talk of a “Cameron Doctrine.”

But things changed rapidly after Cameron lost a Commons vote in August 2013 that would have authorized limited intervention in Syria after the Assad regime used chemical weapons. Stung by the defeat, the Prime Minister seemed to turn against foreign affairs in general. Even after a British aid worker was decapitated by a (British) ISIS executioner, he was reluctant to join in any international intervention against the organization.

Any doubt about the low priority of foreign affairs after the Syria debacle should have been dispelled soon after the sudden resignation of William Hague as foreign secretary in July last year. Cameron proceeded to hand the office once held by Canning and Castlereagh to a party apparatchik named Philip Hammond, who had not previously shown any particular aptitude for (or interest in) foreign policy, and whose previous tenure at the Ministry of Defense was unimpressive even by the low standards of Tory defense secretaries.

But there is an argument that Cameron and his team were never really interested in foreign affairs in a traditional sense. Why else would they have been so sanguine about imposing severe cuts on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) soon after taking office?

The “Cameroons” cut the FCO’s annual budget by almost a third from an already inadequate £2.4 billion in 2010 to £1.7 billion in 2014. As the FT pointed out, the sum is less than the UK spends subsidizing the heating of pensioners.

Embassies and consulates have closed and diplomatic missions have shrunk. This means that the UK will have less intelligence on which to base foreign and security policy, and that the UK’s “soft power” — much boasted of by Cameron at the beginning of the last government — will diminish.

The Cameron government’s failure to give the FCO adequate resources has been particularly damaging for British interests in Latin America. Relations with Chile and Brazil, key allies during the Falklands War, have been neglected despite Argentina’s aggressive rhetoric about the Falklands and the likelihood that Russia may soon sell Buenos Aires game-changing warplanes.

The cuts to the FCO budget, like the even more damaging defense cuts (about which more later), cannot simply be explained by economic necessity.

After all, the Cameron government simultaneously increased spending on the already much bigger Department for International Development (DID) by more than £2.5 billion pounds per annum. (This year the DID budget will actually hit £12 billion in total, in accordance with the goal of spending 0.7 percent of GDP on aid).

Ring-fenced from austerity measures to which all but two other government departments have been subject, the Foreign Aid behemoth is now so lavishly funded its staff have had difficulty making good use of its wealth.

Cameron justified giving additional billions to DID with the claim that foreign aid can prevent war, terrorism and mass migration (he has never distinguished between development aid and humanitarian/emergency aid and may not even be aware of the difference).

However, successive reports have found that DID’s spending is inefficient and often fails to accomplish much good in the countries where it works.

It is not clear if Cameron truly believes that foreign aid has a magical ability to bring about global stability, or if it’s merely the only form of foreign engagement that he feels comfortable dealing with.

But if he and his circle were truly as interested in the projection of British Soft Power as they have been in softening the Tory brand, you would expect them not to put all their eggs in the Aid basket and to have boosted expenditure on the Foreign Office and the British Council, and above all on the BBC’s World Service.

The latter has long been the most important source of British soft power. But during the last five years its influence has diminished, thanks to swingeing budget cuts. In 2011 for example, World Service radio stopped broadcasting to Asia in Mandarin Chinese. It had been doing so for 70 years and its news reports played an important role during the 1989 Democracy protests.

If that weren’t bad enough, in 2014 the government also switched the source of the World Service’s funding from the Foreign Office budget to that of the main BBC, where it is an orphan vulnerable to that Corporation’s internal politics (and, therefore, further cuts).

It’s almost as if the Cameron government were unaware of the regard in which the World Services’ broadcasts are held in many parts of the world, that it reaches at least 170 million people a week even after the cuts, and is unconcerned that countries like China, Russia, Qatar and Iran are all heavily investing in international broadcast networks explicitly inspired by the World Service.

Vanishing ‘Hard’ Power

British hard power has also been devastated since 2010 by deep, ill-considered cuts in a defense budget that was already too small for a country with the UK’s commitments, standing and global interests.

Britain’s NATO allies were horrified by the debacle of the 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review. Its arbitrary 8 percent cut in the overall defense budget resulted in what was arguably a 30 percent cut in capacity across all three services. Its recommendations were clearly determined by Treasury priorities rather than any informed consideration of the country’s current and future needs. Even the liberal Guardian’s defense correspondent called it “an embarrassing and unseemly shambles.”

Few foreign observers could understand the logic behind the rush with which the country’s only aircraft carrier was scrapped and all the Royal Navy’s and RAF’s Harrier jets were sold off at fire-sale prices to a bemused but grateful US Marine Corps.

Critics pointed out that simultaneous cuts in the Army’s troops to pre-Napoleonic levels might be appropriate if all international signs pointed to a new global era of peace and harmony. But they made rather less sense given the upheavals in the Middle East, the increasing belligerence of Russia and the many indications that the world is becoming more a dangerous place.

US officials have publicly expressed worry about the British defense cuts and the likelihood that the UK is ceasing to be a “full spectrum” ally able to deploy a division-sized force alongside American troops in a future conflict. They included Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton, Chief of Army Staff Ray Odierno and President Obama himself. You might have expected Cameron to be embarrassed by the latter’s admonishment, but the American warnings seemed to have had little effect on government direction. Only a month before the general election, the Chancellor of the Exchequer indicated that UK defense spending will likely drop below 2 percent of GDP. The latter is not only required by NATO membership, it’s the amount that experts consider to be the absolute bare minimum for the “special relationship” to continue.

Already, the US military, despite its affection for and ties to the UK’s armed forces, increasingly sees France as its primary partner abroad. Paris has more influence in Washington than at any time since the 1950s, despite the French economy. It is also reaping the other benefits of being perceived as Europe’s leading military power — including the sale of Rafale jets to Qatar, India and Egypt. Having recently opened a Naval base in Abu Dhabi, France can protect its cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

‘Not Good At Foreigners’

There are cultural and personal explanations for Cameron’s retreat from the world.

While it may not be true that his marketing gurus perceive the military as irredeemably “uncool” and spending on it as unhelpful for the Conservative Party’s “detoxification” agenda, it is easy to get the impression that George Osborne and some of his colleagues believe the country’s armed forces are a rather silly indulgence in the modern world.

“There are no votes in defense” (a quote attributed to Philip Hammond during the campaign) and also no votes to be won on foreign policy. That is not a perception limited to the Tories, but something everyone in Britain’s political class now believes.

Of course, you hope that even the most cynical politicians will, at a certain point, look beyond their self-interest and balance what wins votes with what seems best for the national interest. As Iain Martin pointed out, it’s impossible to imagine Margaret Thatcher thinking that “There are no votes in defense.”

Another factor may be what the British media calls the Cameroons’ “essay-crisis” approach to government. This is a reference to the habit of many Oxbridge undergraduates to postpone engaging with important assignments until the night before they’re due. Insider accounts from inside Downing Street confirm that Cameron’s way is to deal with political challenges at the last possible minute. Because Cameron is clever and lucky, it’s an approach that often works. But good foreign policy tends to require medium to long-term planning, calm consideration, and timely advice from a range of experts.

Another explanation for the retreat may be that Cameron recognizes that he is just “not good at foreigners” in the sense that his unquestionable political and people skills do not travel well. Unlike Tony Blair, he has not forged strong bonds with any important foreign leader. Moreover his failed attempt to stop the selection of the Anglophobic Luxembourger Jean-Claude Junker as European Commission President bodes ill for his promised renegotiation of the UK’s place in Europe.

The UK’s withering global influence may further decrease British leverage within the EU, making it less likely that Cameron will win concessions that has promised the public. That in turn increases the possibility that the UK electorate may vote to leave the EU in the referendum Cameron promised largely in order to neutralize the threat from UKIP.

Will Things Change?

After five years of Coalition rule the UK is now punching well below its weight. In spite of its permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a nuclear deterrent, the second largest population in Europe, the fifth largest economy in the world and globe-spanning commercial, cultural, institutional, military and political interests, Britain is behaving like a second Belgium.

It may be that the man who is most responsible for this will now seek to turn the situation round. After all, now that he has a solid majority and his ongoing premiership is assured, Cameron no longer has to worry about LibDem sensibilities, tomorrow’s opinion polls or the state of the Tory “brand”. He has the opportunity to be a global statesman as well as a successful domestic politician, and it is possible that he may be guided in that direction by one of the ablest members of his cabinet, Justice Minister Michael Gove, who has a deep, long-abiding interest in foreign affairs, and who really should have been William Hague’s successor at the Foreign Office.

Unfortunately the portents for change are so far not good. Philip Hammond was reappointed to head the Foreign Office, and Defense Minister Michael Fallon (who provided one of the few laughs of the campaign by accusing Labour of being weak on defense) has also kept his post.

In the past the ability to wield both hard and soft power has enabled Britain to achieve good things in the world, to stand up for human rights and the rule of law, as well to as protect her own citizens and interests. If Britain continues to hemorrhage both its European and American alliances, it won’t be able to do these things, and David Cameron’s legacy will be an isolated, enfeebled, much-diminished country.

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JanV

Looks like France is the only country in the EU now with hard power and willing to use it (in Mali and elsewhere). At least they understand that soft power is not enough.

Posted on 5/21/15 | 3:51 PM CET

Ex

Eye opening, I had not realised quite how far we had declined.

Posted on 5/21/15 | 5:02 PM CET

ExLiberal

One of the few GOOD appointments Cameron made was Hammond!

Posted on 5/21/15 | 5:33 PM CET

ExLiberal

“Soft power” is an oxymorron.
And only morons believe in it.

Posted on 5/21/15 | 5:35 PM CET

Celt Darnell

First off, any Labour politician or commentator who criticizes Tory cuts to defence has the brass neck of brass necks. From 1945 on, Labour governments have been consistently hostile to the British Army, Royal Navy, and RAF and their respective cultures. Tony Blair was a partial exception, except that the defence budget was repeatedly reduced in real terms during his term of office, too. Anyone who claims Millipede would have increased defence spending in the UK is either abysmally ill-informed or simply dishonest.

Does the UK need to spend a lot more on defence? Absolutely. Unfortunately, it’s only us heartless right-wingers who point this out.

Most everything else in here is bollocks. The Ukraine? Not a vital strategic interest. If the Americans and the EU are stupid enough to go to war against Russia over it, they deserve the defeat they will suffer.

Syria? Again, not a strategic interest. Has no-one here learned anything from Iraq? If you want to halt Islamic radicalism in the West here’s an idea: halt Muslim immigration and deport those who are radicals.

The BBC has long been a politically correct parody of its former self. There is simply no longer any justification for it — at home or abroad.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, meantime, supported outsourcing our foreign policy to the EU. Fine, why do we need them if Brussels is now going to represent EU members abroad?

But, of course, the EU is yet another illiberal and anti-democratic transnational institution whose delusions of grandeur are equalled only by its impotence. As long as the UK is part of this lunacy and allows it to direct the show, the UK’s importance will continue to diminish.

To increase its power and influence, the UK must again regain its sovereignty and return to being an independent nation.

Fortunately, thanks to Cameron’s own stupidity, the UK will likely be out of the EU come 2017. At that point, a UK allegedly “alone” in the world will be forced to re-examine issues like immigration, defence and diplomatic representation.

This author is simply advocating that Britain stay on the same suicidal path it’s on.

Posted on 5/22/15 | 1:44 AM CET

Apeman

So, time to retake Falklands / Malvinas? Hopefully Spanish will have enough decency not to push some claim of theirs…
And that quick sell of just modernized, state of the art Harriers with prepayed service contract till 2018 or so, that was a true masterstroke!

Posted on 5/22/15 | 9:51 AM CET

Dunno

Why does the author purposefully mocks Belgium without even providing any solid argumentation on comparing Belgium’s foreign policy with that of the UK?

Is it click-bait? Is it populist following of cliches? Is this Politico?

Posted on 5/22/15 | 12:56 PM CET

William

I too would enjoy an explanation of the author’s reasoning in comparing Belgium’s foreign policy to that of the UK. The only reason for this comparison I can think of is the current Belgian government’s decision to (yet again) cut the defense budget, leading to several expressions of concern in the press by members of the military. In fact, even the Netherlands have started to question whether current and future plans for military cooperation between our countries are still in their interest, taking into consideration the recent downsizing and budget cuts.
Other than that, however, it has often been claimed (a.o. by my professors while I was still pursuing my Masters degree in international affairs and diplomacy – just to give you an idea where this is coming from) that Belgium is actually a country punching ABOVE it’s weight in international affairs or at least in European politics. E.g. how often Belgians end up chairing one of the political ‘parties’ represented in the EP, the importance of the DGs Belgian Commissioners have managed to secure in the past (quite the diplomatic success for a country of just over 11 million people, some might argue) etc.

Posted on 5/22/15 | 4:36 PM CET

Miquel

A very eye opening article.

@Dunno
@William
It might be talking in absolute terms, not relative ones. Belgium ‘punches above its weight’ but has, for now, less international relevance than the UK.

Posted on 5/22/15 | 8:09 PM CET

Andrew Goodwin

@CeltDarnell. I cannot read your remarks relating to the Labour Party’s putative hostility to the Biritish military pass without comment. The diminishment of the UK’s military forces since 1945 has been the work of both parties. It was the Macmillan government in the person of Duncan Sandys that in 1957 issued a strategic policy that declared fast jets to be obsolete, with devastating effects on the country’s aerospace industry. And the statesman who first asserted that the UK had to withdraw militarily from east of Suez and focus on the Cold War, the Army of the Rhine and antisubmarine warfare was none other than the Conservative shadow secretary of state for defence, the Rt. Hon. Enoch Powell. In the event, it was Healy, a Labourite, who had to pull the trigger on the move, which was in the last analysis the only sensible one. The early years of the Thatcher government saw plans for deep cuts, particularly to the Royal Navy, and the decision to substantially shrink the military, leaving a “nuclear tripwire” in place of conventional forces. Only the Falklands War providentially diverted the government from its plan. And, as Foreman writes, it was the Conservative dominated coalition that implemented grotesque amputations of the past five years.
The UK has a lot to think about — really think about — in formulating a new defence strategy. The old way of combining wasteful and chaotic weapons procurement processes with sweeping assumptions of what capabilities won’t be needed and grandiose attitudinizing to placate the right wing aren’t just disconnected from reality, they are positively dangerous. They will cost lives, but the government is now in the hands of the City, whose concept of security has little to do with what the rest of us would call “national security.”

Posted on 5/23/15 | 10:00 PM CET

Benjamin Meyer

Personally I’m not as dismayed as the author seems to be about us stepping back from an interventionist foreign policy that has done little in the way of good, and indeed has made us a widely hated target in many parts of the world. Did the intervention in Libya result in a stable, democratic government? No. Could any reasonable minded person call the current state of affairs in Afghanistan and Iraq an improvement for the people living there? No. Has our military presence in the Middle East done anything to stem the tide of radical Islam? No. Has it radicalized more people, brewed more hatred towards the West and reinforced the UK’s status as one of the key targets for terrorists? Yes.

Maybe not wildly, inaccurately bombing our enemies and innocent civilians in equal measure for a change might actually be a course of action that doesn’t aggravate tensions.